Has Doron Lamb slipped from draft’s first round?

NBA Draft week is finally here. The Big Night is Thursday in New Jersey. Four former Kentucky players appear locks to hear their names called in the first round.

Anthony Davis will go first. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist won’t be far behind. By most accounts, Terrence Jones will fall somewhere in the middle of the first round. In a bit of a surprise, Marquis Teague is getting much love from teams near the end of the first round.

The player on the bubble appears to be Doron Lamb.

The New York native, who is exiting UK after two seasons, is one of the best pure shooters in the draft. Lamb made 46.6 percent of his three-pointers last year. He is a better ball-handler than people might think and he started 35 of 40 games on a national championship team. Before the season, John Calipari called Lamb the best all-around player on his team.

On the down side, experts have questioned Lamb’s overall athletic ability. While considered a decent defender, Lamb is not regarded as a lock-down defender or a decent rebounder. Some see him simply as a shooter.

“(Lamb) isn’t the all-around talent that the other four draft candidates from Kentucky are,” writes Chad Ford of espn.com.

As for the mock drafts, nbadraft.nethas Lamb going in the first round to Chicago with the 29th pick. The Chicago Tribune has Lamb going to Indiana with the 26th pick. Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports has Lamb landing at the No. 25 pick, owned by Memphis.

Many other mock drafts, however, have Lamb tumbling to the second round. NBA Draft Express has Golden State taking Lamb with the fifth pick in the second round. Michael Wells of the Indianapolis Star and David Mayo of Michigan Live both did mock drafts and neither had Lamb in the first-round. While Goodman sees Lamb as a first-rounder, his CBS Sports colleague, Matt Moore, did not list Lamb among his first-round picks.